


The Jemma Simmons Protection Program

by multifandomcircusfreak



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, live with me or die trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifandomcircusfreak/pseuds/multifandomcircusfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"you’re supposed to be in the witness protection system but until that’s set up my cop friend is making me let you live with me au"</p><p>Jemma Simmons had almost made it. Her name meant something, she was given a promotion at her lab, and was so close to having her work internationally recognized. Then, she witnessed her friend Skye's boss shoot the leader of a cult, making Jemma a target for revenge. After that, she was given a choice; move to Wyoming, be marked for death, or live with an engineer friend of Skye's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I'm not moving, Skye,” Jemma protested while she picked up the bowl of popcorn she and her friend had shared and got up to bring it to the kitchen.

Skye rolled her eyes. “I really don't think you're being reasonable here, Jemma.”

“So what?” Jemma called back, sticking her head out of the doorframe. “I witnessed your boss kill some evil guy. I'm not _moving my life around_ just because I saw Coulson shoot him.” 

Skye shifted her position on Jemma's couch so that she was facing her. Speaking with her hands, she continued.”Do you understand the actual significance of the problem? It wasn't _just some evil guy_ , Jem. It was _Daniel Whitehall_. Leader of a cult.”

Jemma simply stared at her, unfazed, and waiting for more details. Skye sighed and added, "And I don't mean some white-boy-gangsters-who-steal-their-parents'-money-to-buy-drugs- because-they-can't-stay-up-past-ten kind of cult, I mean a symbols and secret countersigns and snipers kind of cult, Jem! You saw Hydra’s leader get killed, and that makes you a target for whatever twisted revenge plan they most likely have going on.”

“So, you want to make me move to Wyoming?” Jemma demanded.

Skye held her hands up defensively. “Coulson just wants you to lay low for a little while, okay? Move out of your apartment until he can get this all cleaned up. He says it won’t take too long, since without Whitehall, Hydra is vulnerable.”

Jemma crossed her arms and started pacing the room both anxiously and frustratedly. “There is a very big difference between _moving out of my apartment_ and _moving to Wyoming_.”

“Hey! You said you liked Wyoming!” 

“I told you _once_ that I liked a salad dressing that was _made_ there!”

“Same difference,” Skye replied. “It doesn’t have to be Wyoming, you know. We could find someplace else, get you a fake identity!” Jemma sat on the couch beside her best friend, who placed her hands on Jemma’s. Skye looked down solemnly, before looking back up with a genuinely worried expression. “I’m scared for you, Jemma. My organization has dealt with these guys, and they are terrifying. I never wanted for you to be on their radar.”

Jemma gripped her friend’s hands comfortingly. “It’ll be alright. It was my fault, anyway. I never should have tried to see you in action. You had a mission, and told me to stay where I was when you got picked up…. but I followed you.”

Skye’s face grew slightly hopeful. “So, you’ll agree to the protection program? We’ll have to get you set up… but it’ll be safer.”

Jemma leaned forward to her coffee table, picking up one of her recent files. On the cover it said _Dr. Jemma Simmons: Analysis on the creation of enzymes_. She stroked the smooth paper wistfully. “I can’t just pick up and leave. Everything I’ve worked for is here. My name means something. I don’t think it’s an option for me to just throw that all away, I’ve worked too hard for it.”

“Jemma, please,” Skye pleaded. “It won’t be forever. Everything will be here when you get back.”

“How long could it take?”

Skye hesitated. “A few weeks…. Maybe months…. Years….”

“Years?!”

“Two years tops!”

“Skye!” Jemma exclaimed. “I can’t do that!” 

“I’ll figure something out,” she promised. “I’m not leaving you where it’s not safe. But listen to me, Jem. I know it sucks, but you don’t have many options here right now. It’s either you change your life and live, or you keep your name and lifestyle and possibly die at the hands of a cult.”

Jemma made a whimper/groaning sound at the back of her throat and flopped against her friend. Skye’s arms immediately wrapped around her, and she felt her head being pressed against her own.

“My life is ruined,” she mumbled in despair.

“No,” Skye assured her. “We’re going to figure this out. You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”


	2. Chapter 2

For the third night in a row, Jemma didn’t sleep very well. Her nights were spent by her drifting off and reawakening in different increments of time, sometimes eerily dreamless and other times filled with nightmares.

Tonight, she’d fallen asleep on her couch while watching Grey’s Anatomy (it was the only thing on during those odd hours) and dreamt once again of the events that had happened three days prior. 

She was sitting on the bench of a fountain with Skye, eating the lunch Jemma had made, and enjoying the blissful day when they both were off work. Skye retold all the stories she was allowed to tell of what she and her national police team had faced since they’d last spoken. Jemma returned the favour with details about her latest project on enzymes. 

Suddenly, a man in a suit showed up and called Skye away, saying vaguely that _he_ was closeby. Skye’s eyes widened, and she turned to Jemma to start profusely apologizing and explained that she had to cut this meeting short and go _now_. She told Jemma to stay exactly where she was until she came back for her.

Jemma _had_ waited. She waited for an hour by herself, thinking about what Skye’s job was. She told her that she was with the police, but also that she worked for an organization. Jemma had come up with the conclusion that she worked with the national police, or something like the CIA. At one point she saw Coulson running into a warehouse across the street, and couldn’t help herself.

The tone of the dream was darker then, as Jemma walked discreetly into the building. Hiding in a corner, she didn’t see Skye, but instead another man in a suit. Coulson and the man exchanged an inaudible conversation. Then Coulson shot him. The man looked directly at Jemma, blood seeping out of his chest. The look in his eyes was terrifyingly creepy. 

The next part had never happened in real life, but it still haunted all of her dreams and thoughts. Staring right at her, he vowed, “If I go down, you will too,” before hitting the floor.

The next thing Jemma knew, Coulson had become aware of her presence, and armed men had to usher her out of the warehouse to where Skye was waiting. It was obvious that her friend hadn’t meant to be heard, but Jemma caught her repeating “no no no” to herself over and over. The second she was in sight, Skye’s anxious expression was replaced with a rather tight-faced one, and Jemma knew she was in trouble.

She woke up in a sweat every time.

Around 6:00 am, Jemma was passed out fitfully on her couch when she felt herself being shaken awake. She opened her eyes to see Skye’s face, bright as ever. Jemma couldn’t tell if it was an act.

“Morning, Jemma!” she greeted. 

She sat up to see that there were two men in full tactical gear beside the door. One was apparently appreciating a painting that decorated the wall above a table at the entrance to her flat. The other was visibly bored, with dull eyes and crossed arms.

“Skye, what’s going on?” she asked groggily.

Skye gestured to her comrades and explained. “These are two guys from my field team, Trip and Lance. I brought them along to help you get set up with what I call _The Jemma Simmons Protection Program_ , or the JSPP. Whichever one you prefer.”

“A - and what exactly does that entail?”

Skye sat down on the couch beside her. “Well, you have three options. We’ll help you with whichever one you choose.”

Jemma nodded for her to continue. 

Her friend took a deep breath and began. “One, you can move to Wyoming or whatever unexpected place of your choosing. You’ll get a temporary fake identity and you’ll live there until we tell you that you can come back.”

She looked down at her lap pensively. She didn’t like that option. “The second one?” she asked, hoping it would be better.

“Well, that’s the one where you stay at your apartment. You’ll be on the radar and you won’t be safe for long… It’s keeping your life the same, but at a high risk. We’d have to assign people to your protection just so you could not have to move.”

Jemma sighed, shifting around on her seat uncomfortably. “And the third option? Please tell me it’s better than the first two.”

Skye smiled, which was a good sign. “Well, _I_ think that it is. Option number three is kind of the middle ground. Not perfect, mind you. But not extreme.”

Jemma liked the sound of that. Middle ground. “Continue,” she urged.

“So, basically, you can stay with your work. No fake identity, no moving across the country. You can’t stay here though.”

She looked warily at her friend, who smirked. “Where would I be staying, then?”

Skye held up a hand to soothe her. “One of my colleagues has agreed to let you stay with him for a little while. He’s even a nerd like you, so he has a lab in his apartment where you can work instead of your current placement.”

Jemma blinked in astonishment. Someone had actually agreed to let a stranger who was on the run from a dangerous cult stay with them? Or had Skye had something to do with that other than asking nicely?

“What did you do to convince him? Is it one of those guys?” she asked, motioning to the men at the door.

Skye smirked. “No, it’s not one of those two boneheads. It’s an engineer who runs backup for my team. And as for how I convinced him, let’s just say I called in a few favours.” She winked, and Jemma was pretty sure that if she’d had a drink, she would’ve choked on it.

“Alright…” she stated sarcastically. _Favours_ for Skye meant blackmail. 

“So,” Skye pressed. “What’s it going to be? One, two, or three?”

After a moment’s thought, Jemma decided. “Option three.”

Skye clapped her hands together. “Okay, then! I was hoping you would go for that one.” She pushed off of the couch to stand, and Jemma followed her lead. 

“He’s not a creep, right?” she asked, trying to tidy her mussed up hair and brush off her clothes.

“Oh, god no!” Skye exclaimed. “I wouldn’t send you to live with some wackjob. No, I trust Fitz. We’ve worked together since I was recruited to the force. He’s a little socially awkward, I’ll give you that…. and he convinced me that I had to take a course to use practically all of our tech… and he can drink like a viking when he sets his mind to it…. but he’s not a creep. Don’t worry.”

Jemma lifted her arms up in a shrug and dropped them back down again. “So what now?”

“Now…” Skye answered with suspense dripping into her tone. She gripped Jemma’s shoulders from behind, shaking them a bit before sticking her head out beside the biochemist’s. “We get you ready. Pack what you want to bring with you. Everything else will stay. This apartment now has a government order to remain your property until your safe return. If you need anything after we leave, I’ll send for someone to pick it up. Understood?”

“Yes,” Jemma confirmed.

They turned then and there to start packing. An hour later, Jemma had all of her important files and data in one bag, and two suitcases full of everything else, like clothes and books. The experience was very similar to going on a trip, like it was all voluntary, but Jemma knew that it wasn’t. She was leaving her home to live with a man she’d never met, in a place where she’d never been, because a group of killers were potentially after her. Her home would still be here, half-abandoned, but she couldn’t return. 

“You all set?” Skye asked when they were done filling bags.

“I suppose, yes,” she replied in a dazed voice, still coming to terms with what had happened. Yesterday, she had shrugged it all off, pretending it wasn’t important and that life could go back to the way it was. Now, that she was packing to leave…. It all seemed so real.

“This won’t be forever, Jem,” Skye comforted, patting her arm. “Just until Coulson fixes this.”

“I know,” she smiled tightly. “Please just get me out of this, though, alright?”

“I will,” she promised grimly before perking up. “So lets go meet your new flatmate!”

Trip and Lance picked up her bags and nodded to Skye. One of them peeked out the door and looked around before gesturing for the two women to follow. Jemma grabbed her jacket and left after her friend did, allowing herself to be led to, and loaded into a black SUV. As she looked out the window during the ride to who-knows-where, she watched the buildings of her city pass by. Since she’d discovered what Skye’s job actually was, she’d caught herself thinking more than once about the possibility of there being bad men and women lurking about her area, or snipers positioned on the rooftops of said buildings. But now, she found herself wondering if the guns were trained on _her_.


	3. Chapter 3

Skye told her to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself when they moved from the SUV to a seemingly average apartment complex. An elevator ride and short walk later, they were stopped in front of a door. Lance and Trip were around the corner of the hallway, and fortunately, they’d covered up their tactical gear with more casual clothes. Jemma didn’t exactly like being escorted places by people who looked like they were armed guards.

She shot Skye a wary look, but she was given a comforting and assuring one in exchange. Skye rang the doorbell, and seconds later, a man opened the door. He was in his pajamas, which Jemma, being an early riser, found odd, but it was the weekend. He ran a hand through his mop of curly hair and fastened his gaze on Skye intensely.

“Hi, Fitz!” the hacker exclaimed cheerfully.

“Is this her?” Fitz asked, studying Jemma cautiously. She didn’t appreciate the way he seemed so wary about her, but she supposed that it was justified, considering he was letting a woman fleeing his enemies into his home.

“Yeah,” Skye answered. “This is my friend Jemma. I’ll introduce you two further, but can we come in?”

“Oh, um, of course,” he stuttered, opening the door to let them in. Skye made some sort of signaling wave to her buddies in the hall and entered, closing the door behind her.

The inside of the apartment was comfy looking. He had a kitchen and a living room that she could see, and she could tell that it was personalized to him, unlike some homes she’d been to that looked like they’d been taken directly from a catalog. Fitz led her to a sofa area, where they all sat down, the two women on the couch, and Fitz on a chair beside his television set. 

“Would you like tea?” he asked, gesturing to the pot and cups he had placed on the table in front of them.

“No - No thanks,” she mumbled.

Skye clapped her hands together, smiling a little bit too brightly for Jemma’s current mood. 

“Well, people of the JSPP! Let’s get you two introduced, huh? So, this is Dr. Jemma Simmons. You already know the tricky, messed up reason for why she’s here. She’s a biochemist, and is like, a genius.”

“Skye…” she murmured. The last thing she wanted was for Fitz to think that she was some mad scientist.

If Skye had heard her, she didn’t let on, and simply continued. “Jemma, this is Dr. Fitz. He’s an engineer who’s on my team. He is also a genius.”

At that, Jemma turned to Fitz. He was a genius? She wondered if Skye had meant that as in an actual certified genius, or if he’d been able to open Microsoft Word when she couldn’t. She hoped that it was the former. It would be nice to have someone to talk to about things that others wouldn’t understand during however long this HYDRA sweep took. The fact that Skye had informed her that he had a lab as part of his apartment lead her to believe in the possibility. 

“Is that all you’re going to say?” Fitz joked. “That we’re geniuses in our respective fields?”

Skye looked like she was on the verge of laughter. “I’m just giving you the bare minimum. I’ll let you two, uh, get to know each other later.” She winked at the two of them, and Jemma felt her face flush red. Fitz opened his mouth to argue, but Skye looked down at her buzzing phone. “Well, Fitzy dearest, it seems like Coulson needs me. I’ll leave you two nerds to yourselves.”

“Wait!” Jemma exclaimed, standing abruptedly. She hadn’t known that her friend would be leaving so soon, and felt a hint of panic rise up in her chest. She wasn’t ready to be left alone just yet. “Do you have to go?”

Skye stood as well, and gave Jemma a sympathetic look. “It’s orders, Jem. But you’re in safe hands.” She looked directly at Fitz and said seriously, “Take care of her.”

He nodded solemnly, and she felt like a child being handed off between guardians.

Skye enveloped Jemma in a big hug. “I’ll come back to check on you, okay? Just hang in there.”

She walked to the door, and right before she left, Skye added, “Have fun, you guys.” Then, Jemma was alone with Fitz in his apartment.

They both stood there awkwardly for a moment before Fitz finally spoke up. “Um, do you want me to show you around?”

She looked up at him, and found the shy expression on his face kind of endearing. “Yes, please. That would be nice.”

He smiled and started to grab her bags, when she stopped him. “Oh no!” she exclaimed, picking up the bag that contained all of her work. She saw his shocked face and tried to amend her outburst. “Sorry, this is just my personal bag.”

“Oh, I apologize…” he hesitated before continuing. “Follow me.”

He led her throughout the apartment, pointing everything out as the went. He showed her where everything was in each of the cupboards - he really did have a lot of cereal, like an _abnormal_ amount of cereal - and told her where the bathroom was, which it seemed like they would be sharing. 

Then, they got to her room. Fitz stood by the door and informed her that this was where she would be sleeping. He stood back to give her space to look around. The bed inside was neatly made with dark green sheets with stripes on them. There was a bookshelf in the far corner, bare except for a little statuette of a cat. All in all, the room was empty other than the bed, dresser, bookshelf, bedside table, and a mirror.

Fitz apparently either saw her reaction to the spare room or read her mind, because he commented, “Yeah, it’s a little bare. No one really uses it. I would have changed it into an office, but I have a desk in my room, and my mum sleeps here when she visits from Scotland. Feel free to change it up a bit while you’re here.”

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, turning around to look at him. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

He was leaning against the doorframe, and shrugged his shoulders a bit. “No problem. Any friend of Skye’s is a friend of mine, and any enemy of HYDRA is at least one step up.”

Jemma smiled. It honestly didn’t seem that hard to be better than HYDRA, but the compliment was meant with good intentions. “I really mean it. Thanks a lot.”

He waved her off, and she could tell that he wasn’t great at accepting other people’s gratitude for him. “Do you want to see the lab?” he asked after she’d placed her bags on her temporary bed.

“Yes!” she practically shouted, before blushing profusely. “I mean, yes, please.”

He smiled at her enthusiasm. “Right this way,” he chuckled. Fitz walked down the hallway. Right at the end was a simple door, which she had assumed was a storage closet at first glance. He looked at her in amusement, and hovered his hand over a thermostat on the wall to the right of the door. In a swift motion, he slid the cover aside, and what was underneath was definitely not a thermostat. It was a keypad.

“The combination is 7924,” he told her, and pressed those numbers as he spoke. Sure enough, they worked. Jemma nearly gasped when the door unlocked and slid to the side instead of opening in like she’d expected. At his nod, she stepped in to look around.

The lab was obviously the apartment beside his own that had been renovated, or possibly a maintenance room. It wasn’t huge, but it was spacious, and definitely well equipped. Jemma figured that anything she could have possibly needed to complete her work was sitting on one of the neatly stocked shelves that lined the room, or one of the tables.

“Is that a holotable?” she gawked at the piece of equipment in the centre of the lab. 

“Yeah....” Fitz appreciated. “Fresh off the line. I made a few tweaks to it, obviously, but the model itself was just made when I got it. Took me more effort than I’d wanted to convince Coulson to order it.”

“I could imagine,” Jemma gushed. “My lab wouldn’t buy one no matter how much I argued that it would be beneficial to seeing -”

“High definition 3D models,” he finished for her.

“Exactly.”

He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, and looked at her for a moment before clearing his throat and continuing. “Um, yeah. I’m sorry that a lot of the equipment is for engineering… I’m sure you’ll find most of whatever you need, and if you’re missing something important, I’ll call Coulson. He said that since you can’t go to work because of, um, ambushes and the like, he’ll make sure that you still have the necessities.”

Jemma walked a few steps further into the lab, studying everything she could see. “SHIELD bought this for you? Wow, you’re spoiled. My lab gave me a pen after my fifth promotion. It was a nice pen.... but a home lab is so much better.”

Fitz came up to where she was in the centre of the room and stood beside her. He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, SHIELD isn’t exactly the safest of jobs. They sort of try to make you want to stay with all of this stuff. Playing with all the newest toys helps you forget that when they call you into action, you’re going to get shot at.”

She gaped at him. “You’ve been _shot at?_ Skye said you weren’t a specialist.”

He laughed without humor. “You don’t have to be combat-trained to get shot at, Jemma. Just a field agent, which I am.”

“Still…”

He paused for a moment, apparently trying to figure out what to say next. Talking about getting shot at wasn’t exactly the best topic for conversation, she realized. Giving him an out, she said, “So, is this the last room that I need to see? I’d like to take you up on that tea, if that’s alright.”

His eyes widened for a split second at the change of topic, then he responded. “Oh, yeah, it’s the last room. Let’s head back.”

***

“So, how did you and Skye meet?” Jemma asked a few minutes later as Fitz pressed a warm cup of tea into her hands. She took it graciously and let the steam billowing of the top warm her face. 

Fitz sat down on the chair he’d inhabited earlier, directly across from her, with the coffee table between them. As he poured milk into his mug, he told her, “I had been asked by SHIELD to be part of a field team, going around the country to fix problems - basically a police force for all of America. Skye had just gotten her badge, and she was assigned to my team.” He offered her the milk, which she accepted. “As for how we met… I was walking down to my bunk, and she just shoved her things in my arms. I’m pretty sure she knew that I was an agent, and not maintenance, but she didn’t care.”

Jemma laughed. “That does sound like something Skye would do.”

She put the pitcher on a coaster on the table, and fiddled with her still-too-hot cup. “What about you?” Fitz asked her. “How did you come across the human whirlwind that is Skye?”

She smiled at the memory, and recounted the events to him. “Well, when I met her, I thought she was a cop. She came to my lab to request an analysis on some samples. We became friends after that. She only told me her real job a few months ago.”

“I don’t think she would last a week as a real cop.”

“Me neither,” Jemma agreed. “Fitz?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

He hesitated a bit before answering. “Yeah.”

“How did Skye convince you to let me stay? She said she called in some favours.”

“Oh, really? Is that what she said. She basically showed up here yesterday and told me what happened with you. She said that she would have invited you to stay with her, but HYDRA would expect it, and her house wasn’t safe anyways.”

“HYDRA knows where Skye lives?”

“I guess. It’s not important right now, because she barely even lives there except for when she’s in town, and HYDRA has other priorities. They would expect you to go there now, though, so it’s not safe.” He took a breath and continued his story. “So Skye asked if you could stay with me.”

“Did she blackmail you?”

Fitz smirked. “Not really, but she told me that if I agreed she would put a good word in with Coulson about getting me a helper monkey. I would have said yes anyway, because I trust her and if she said you were okay, then you probably were.”

“Fitz?”

“Yes?” 

“Does HYDRA know where _you_ live? Is here any safer?”

Fitz smirked. “First of all, HYDRA wouldn’t expect you to come to a complete stranger's house. Secondly… they don’t know that I’m an agent.”

Jemma was glad that she was only about to take a sip of her tea, instead of actually drinking it, because she would have done a spit take. “Really?” she demanded in astonishment. “Why not?”

Fitz drank a bit of his tea, and moved around in his chair. “SHIELD took a blow a while back. I got injured on a mission - just a broken arm, but enough to make me a liability on missions in the field, so I took a break. I did my work from the lab here. Apparently, HYDRA thought that I either quit or died, and I haven’t proved them otherwise. I’m back in the field now, but just when Coulson calls for me. If I’m only needed to run the backend or do lab work, I do it from my apartment.”

“Wow!” She leaned in forward from the couch. “Are you the secret weapon?”

He laughed at that and replied, “That’s one way to think of me.”

They spent the remainder of the day talking about their lives, mainly about Skye and her antics of varying craziness. By the end of it, Jemma was pretty sure that she’d like it here. She had never considered herself lonely, but she realized that having someone to talk to other than Skye and her old colleagues was kind of nice. The science chat was great too. Fitz really was as smart as she hoped that he’d be.

It was 10 pm, and Jemma was finishing unpacking her things in the room that was now hers. It looked a little less barren now that she’d filled the dresser with her clothes, and put her files in the desk. She’d even placed some of her favourite books on the shelf.

She saw Fitz out of the corner of her eye and turned to look at him. Like he had before, he was now leaning against the doorframe.

“Can I help you?” she asked quietly.

“I was just making sure you were all unpacked. Do you need anything?”

“No…” she replied, looking around to see if anything would remind her of something she required. “I think I’m all set. Thanks again for letting me stay.”

“No problem. Goodnight, Jemma.”

She smiled at him. “Goodnight, Fitz.”

He walked off, and she moved to shut the door. Jemma pulled down the covers and slipped in. The bed didn’t feel like the one she slept on at home, but at least it wasn’t uncomfortable. She nestled into the mattress and turned off the lamp beside her, calm darkness flooding the room.

She fell asleep in a strange bed, in a strange apartment, under strange circumstances, but for the first time in three days, she slept soundly. Jemma felt safe.


End file.
